The other day coming home from work I switched my Pandora channel over to Grandmaster Flash and listened to early Rap on the way home. Rapper's Delight, The Message, The 8th Wonder, New York, all the classics and, of course, Run DMC. I'm still a sucker for early days Rap because it is the Hip Hop I grew up listening to. My musical tastes have always run the entire spectrum of the dial, a reference some of you might not even get.

And then King of Rock by Run DMC came on. And it struck me that certain types of Rap are like certain types of Low Sec Pirates. Both come from semi-criminal environments, both skirt the edges of respect, and both often feel the need to pound their chests to be noticed. Either way I started writing lyrics and I couldn't stop.

Just for fun, here is Lord of Low, based on Run DMC's King of Rock:Lyrics
I'm the lord of low, there is none higher
Sucker FC's should call me sire
To burn my kingdom, you must use fire
I won't stop flyin' till I retire

Now we rock the gates and fly correct
Our ships are on time and fits connect
Got the right to choose and will select
And other pirates can't stand us, but give us respect

They convo'd us and said we're gettin' bolder
There's no one colder
It's not Shadow Cartel and I'm notta shareholder
As one def pirate, I know I can hang
I'm Rixx from Stay Frosty, flying with my Gang
Roll to the rokh, rokh to the roll
Stay Frosty stands for devastating ship control
You can't touch me with a ten foot pole
And I even made the devil sell me his soul

Now we crash through camps, slide through gates
Bust through cynos and always take baits
And when we're on a roam, it's always a trap
You can hear our guns from across the map
For every living person we're a flashing threat
It's me and Stay Frosty, so where's the dragnet?

Now we're the baddest of the bad, the coolest of the cool
I'm Rixx, I rokh and roll. With Stay Frosty, I rokh and rule
It's always Trick or Treat and never April Fool
It's all brand new, never ever old school

You got care in your bear and you can't comprehend
When your fits don't work and on WCS you depend
Piracy ain't nothin' but a pilot's jam
I'm Rixx Javix rockin with my band

Now I flew in ice belts and never mined
And my manual skills have never declined
I've been on many shows, including the o7
Take many frigates, the menace heaven
So all you sucker FC's, you gotta say please
Cause when I jump gates, It's loot I seize
Got a Corp so strong, it causes unease
Is it hard to believe it's Stay Frostie

I try to log in, every day
And Jose goes to school, never stray
And Cerv breaks the records he has to break
And we all undock with no delay, HEY!
I rock the tweetfleet with the words I speak
And Skir cuts the fits that are unique
And Jose makes us practice every day of the week
And we are the crew that can never be beat
So don't try to diss me, try to be my friend
Cause if you do, you'll get yours in the end
The ships we fly, shall set a trend
Because a devastating gang is what we send

We'll reign on your brain and rock your knot
When it comes to Eve, give it all we got
To be FC's, we got what it takes
Let the losers lose and the breakers break
We're cool cool cats, it's like that
That's the way it is, so stay the hell back
We're causin' hard times, for sucker FC's
Cause they don't make no songs like these
Period!

What if I was a famous portrait photographer traveling New Eden to capture portraits of the common folk as they go about their daily lives? Yes, these are the types of questions I actually ask myself from time to time. The result is some playful and rather intensive photoshop magic I've been working on a bit. A combination of digital painting techniques and photographic manipulation (art and science!) results in these high-resolution (16"x21") portraits.

For the past six years Rixx has survived in Eve solely on the iskies that I (his player) earned by providing creative services to the Eve community. Hundreds and hundreds of projects, some big, some small, and most in-between. Alliance logos, wallpapers, t-shirts, blog banners, you name it and I've done it. Heck there are 1,203 images just in my Flickr portfolio alone. It has been a great run, a tremendous amount of fun, and a way to keep certain skills from waning during the down times.

But all good things must come to an end.

As of today I will no longer be accepting "project for isk" work. Every day I feel horrible about the increasingly long list of projects that I simply no longer have the time to address properly. And that is not fair to me or to those waiting to hear from me. I don't want to feel horrible about creative work and, most importantly, I don't want people to wait for months for me to get around to them.

So it has to end. I will continue to accept paid commission work and I have a bunch of those in progress. And I'll keep on helping Eve-NT and CZ when they need me. The Podcast will continue and everything else will remain the same. Just no more Alliance logos and other projects for iskies. Something had to give and that's it.

I would like to start logging into Eve again. I did today for twenty minutes for the first time in a month.

I've done some digging and discovered some interesting facts about the o7 Show that I'd like to share with you. I believe you will find them just as incredible as I have. To understand the o7 Show we must go back even further to a little schoolhouse in Iceland at the turn of the century. There a very young man who one day would become Hilmar's Father only had one thing on his mind.

He's the one with the sign

He read copies of Jules Verne adventures until the pages wore out and listened to the early days of radio drama piped in from Europe and dreamed of flying to far away worlds in his own spaceship. This was the dawn of CCP and the beginnings of what would become Eve Online.

But this isn't a history lesson about CCP or Eve as much as it is the o7 Show, so let's focus on that shall we? The very early days of the o7 Radio Show are lost to time and not much still exists.

But here in this archive photo you can see "The Goon Squad" acting out a capture of Fountain with the Special Effects guys adding the Pew Pew sounds from real guns!! These were exciting times and kids all over the world would listen in to the adventures. The Eve Adventure Club was very popular.

Jita Clifford

This is a very rare photo of Jita Clifford who would take telegraphed spaceship moves from players from all over Iceland and coordinate them all on the big map. Her knowledge of New Eden was incredible but she never kept a written log, only remembering everything in her own head. When she was tragically killed in a multiple car accident one year, a lot of knowledge went with her. Even to this day you will often hear a Dev say, "The logs show nothing" which is a tribute to Jita Clifford!

The first AT Tournament

But then television came along and killed radio. The very first AT tournament was "simulated" in 1949 and broadcast to 4 people in Iceland. The effects were not that great, here is an Amarr ship crash landing on a planet. But this was just the beginning.

"The Harbinger"

And the o7 Show was born! The first episode aired in 1952 and featured dramatic skits in the vein of Buck Rodgers that would act out various Eve player battles. To us these seem simple and crude, but back then the o7 Show was groundbreaking. Eve was really starting to catch on. Mostly because of the outfits and the hats. Seriously, the hats mostly.

"Professor Eve"

1954 saw the introduction of Professor Eve a kindly gentlemen who would help explain Eve to children on the o7 Show. He became extremely popular and he dominated the rest of the 1950s. Meanwhile CCP continued to invest in new technologies, including the very first server.

The punch cards would be mailed in from all over Europe!

Sadly in 1959 an unfortunate incident on the show changed everything. The o7 Show had started losing popularity and the big wigs were considering some drastic changes. One cast member lost it on set and began beating people with his hat. From then on the mere idea of hats left a sour taste in CCP's mouth for generations.

This guy ruined hats for over sixty years!

The 07 Show lost its way for a number of years. They tried everything! For one year they tried turning it into a drama. That was so terrible that even today Eve players will tell you they don't want any drama in Eve!

For a short period they even tried it as a children's cartoon show.

And an intellectual talk show.

But then the biggest event in o7Show history happened and Ursula Wentworth suddenly became the show's most popular hostess.

From 1963-1969 Ursula was the hottest hostess on television and the o7Show finally started attracting attention across the atlantic in the United States! These were the salad days and for awhile the o7 Show was more popular than Eve. Even the Eve Board Game!

Sadly the actress playing Ursula perished in an un-solved scuba diving accident in 1969 and the show took nearly three decades to recover.

The 1969 season saw marionettes used.

And then in 1970 it moved into a Game Show format.

These were dark days for the show and ratings plummeted to record lows. In a few short years the o7 Show would finally go dark and leave the air. It wouldn't be until the advent of the World Wide Web and the realization that Eve would work better as an on-line based game, that the o7 Show would finally realize its full potential.

If you are interested in more details and more great stories from this incredible history, check out Andrew Groen's new book.

I haven't posted in awhile because I've been buried under work. And also, to be perfectly frank, an incident of harassment a couple weeks ago sorta took the wind out of my sails. They always do. Over the years I've faced all sorts of grief both in-game and out-of-game. From stalker level stuff to just pure harassment, server grabs, comms theft, forums being posted in public, kids being made gun of, on and on it goes. If you can imagine it, someone has tried to do it. And while none of these things change anything, they certainly can suck the energy out of me. So this last one was no different. Its sad really. But there is nothing I can do to change it.

Don't get me wrong, that incident is not why I stopped writing. Over the past few weeks I've been getting used to having a full-time job again. Its been three years since I went into an office every day and that takes some getting used to. On top of that, several old contacts of mine got active again and I've been pounding the after-hours circuit every single night and weekend for the past month. I've written industrial company promotion videos, re-branded three companies, designed logos, business cards, and even put together a few brochures. Its been great, but it has also eaten up all my free time.

And free time is when I'm usually pounding away on Eve work. So I'm also horribly behind on Eve work. My sincere apologies to everyone patiently waiting on me. I'm trying, I really am. You may not know it but I am getting thru the pile slowly and surely. Not at my normal pace, but I am trying.

I'm still out here and I hope to get most of the back-log taken care of before Fanfest rolls around.

After Fanfest I'm going to be making some changes and rolling back on my commitments a bit here and there. I'd like to be able to log into Eve again. Y'know, at some point.

Its been 16 months since the last 1v1 Eve Comic and I think that is long enough. There is no doubt that the strip suffered from the reality of things going on in my own life, sixteen months ago is exactly when everything started taking a turn for the worst. So it seems only fitting that it returns when things are finally starting to take a turn for the better.

The first one was done, by hand, back in March 2010. I used to draw them every Friday morning on the back of a pad of note paper on my desk at work. Then scan them in and reverse the drawings in Photoshop to get the space look. At some point I realized I could just draw them in Photoshop and I've been doing that ever since.

I had a blast talking with the always wonderful and charming Mimic about the CSM Summit, player events, balancing, the nitwits on Team Five-O and Fanfest. (Only kidding about the nitwits) And the o7 Show of course.

I hope you enjoy listening to our conversation and I'd like to thank CCP Mimic for joining me in the Stay Frosty Lounge. That place can be rather rough at times as its full of Pirates.

The Rixx Javix Store

Welcome to EVEOGANDA!

Eve + Propaganda = Eveoganda. Your one-stop Eve Magazine and gateway to the Eve Community, for over seven years Eveoganda has been raising Hell, taking names and openly mocking things that need to be mocked. All in the name of fun, adventure and internet spaceships.

Email me at RixxJavix@gmail.com

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